that dad game
i have been coerced by the power of the internet to download dream daddy and then i figured, i wanted a place to talk about it that wasn't twitter
here are my thoughts. spoilers, i guess, for a dad dating sim? (words i never thought i'd say, but here we are.) i'll update as i play through other storylines and such.
general:
- i am really glad that this game exists in a universe where none of the drama is around the fact that your dad is queer. it's all interpersonal stuff, and not at all related to the fact that you're a dad trying to date another dad. it's nice to be able to play out a queer storyline without feeling like i need to worry about another shoe dropping. even in places where you'd think it could potentially get antagonistic about your dad being Not Straight, it never goes there.
- the dialogue is just so hilarious. there are dad jokes and bad puns aplenty, but also just the general interactions between characters is fantastic. i definitely spend a lot of time laughing out loud.
- it's also surprisingly emotional. your partner (you choose in the beginning of the game if your partner is male or female) has passed away some time ago and you're moving with your teenage daughter to a new house across town. there are parts where your dad and amanda (the daughter) have a few heart to hearts where i was just like, why is the dad game making me feel my feelings??
- this review really nailed what i think is most touching about the game -- yes, it's a silly dating sim about hot dads, but it doesn't skimp on the storyline with amanda, either. for as many hot dad choices as you have to make, you have to make choices on how to proceed with amanda, what kind of dad you're going to be for her. balancing dating and being a dad is an interesting touch and for as much as i want to have all the dad dating fun, i'm 100% invested in making sure things turn out okay with amanda.
now for some specifics, so... spoilers past this point.
7/22
robert
- apparently per the internet, if you sleep with robert the first time you meet him, you're never going to get the good ending with him. but. listen. sometimes a hot dad just needs to hook up with another hot dad, okay
- i'll probably go back and play through robert on the "whoops we already banged" trajectory i already set him on, and then eventually go play back in a way where i don't hook up with him at the first meeting, so stay tuned
- there's a bit in joseph's storyline where your dad sees a picture of the Dad Group and robert is there and has a sweater on? that your dad recognizes? anyway, i really really want to know what's up with that. do robert and joseph have a history??? i need to know!!
joseph
- i picked this storyline to play out first, because i was like, well, let's get the fucked up one out of the way first
- if you were wondering if it was possible to accidentally kill your dad in game, the answer is yes, and you can do it in joseph's storyline, in the most ridiculous absurd way possible. on the plus side, when you die -- at least how i experienced it here -- it just punts you right back to where you left off, so you don't have to go back to earlier save points. (there might be other storylines where you die, but this is obviously the first one i found so far.)
- this is a storyline where -- if this game was going to be shitty about your queer dad, even by accident, it would be here. you're sharing intimate moments with an unhappily married youth minister. you have to interact with his wife several times. there's a lot of potential for garbage there!! but the closest it ever gets with mary is her saying that she doesn't think you're usually joseph's type, which could mean anything, and which given the tone of the rest of the game, i didn't interpret as a sexuality thing.
- anyway, so (right now) the only ending you can really get with joseph is him sitting down and telling you "well, this has been nice, but i've been thinking and i'm going to try to reconcile with my wife". depending on the choices you made up to there, the dialogue may be slightly different but that's the gist of it. and even though that's the ending i expected -- i was still really sad? like, gasped, pushed the laptop away from me. i felt just as sad and confused as my game dad. we did everything right! he's clearly miserable with mary! please, dream daddies!!!
- according to at least one twitch streamer, there's a theory that there's a bug in the game with your interactions with mary -- basically at one point, it turns out that no matter what conversation strings you follow, you get the same result -- she leaves the interaction pissed off. the assumption is that one of those strings should get her to leave the bar happier and change the outcome of the storyline.
- but also, like. it would be 10000% more realistic that the only reasonable ending you get after fucking around with a married dude is the one where you don't end up together. so. maybe it's not a bug.
amanda
- apparently you can get a bad ending with amanda and i honestly don't know if i have it in my heart to be a shitty dad to her. why would i want to make amanda unhappy! that sounds like the worst.
7/23
robert
- i played through a little more of his storyline and got a happy-ish ending? it was basically robert being like "hey i really need to work on myself but this is nice and i'm glad you're here for me". for a silly dating sim, delving into "guy has unresolved issues that he covers up with extreme sarcasm and also heavy drinking" is certainly a choice i didn't expect
- i'm still super intrigued by whatever's going on with mary and robert? like, how are they drinking besties? i have so many questions!!
joseph
- i didn't go back to replay any of his storyline but i did get myself caught up in a reddit spiral reading about the "secret ending" for his storyline and i am FASCINATED. i won't spoil it here, you can google it if you want, but as someone who's all about stuff that's dark and creepy and fucked up, i wish someone could figure out how to crack that ending because it wold give me a lot of joy. (the rest of the internet seems to be Mad about it.)
- playing through the robert storyline a bit and getting my dates crashed by mary, who exists mostly to drink and flirt with other guys, makes me even more annoyed that the joseph endings are all "lol nm going back to my wife"
i think either my next playthrough will be: going on at least two dates with each dad before picking a new one? or like.... a catastrophe run where i just pick the absolute worst answer for every conversation? i will need to create a new dad for that; i'm too attached to my current dad to make him be an asshole to everyone.
here are my thoughts. spoilers, i guess, for a dad dating sim? (words i never thought i'd say, but here we are.) i'll update as i play through other storylines and such.
general:
- i am really glad that this game exists in a universe where none of the drama is around the fact that your dad is queer. it's all interpersonal stuff, and not at all related to the fact that you're a dad trying to date another dad. it's nice to be able to play out a queer storyline without feeling like i need to worry about another shoe dropping. even in places where you'd think it could potentially get antagonistic about your dad being Not Straight, it never goes there.
- the dialogue is just so hilarious. there are dad jokes and bad puns aplenty, but also just the general interactions between characters is fantastic. i definitely spend a lot of time laughing out loud.
- it's also surprisingly emotional. your partner (you choose in the beginning of the game if your partner is male or female) has passed away some time ago and you're moving with your teenage daughter to a new house across town. there are parts where your dad and amanda (the daughter) have a few heart to hearts where i was just like, why is the dad game making me feel my feelings??
- this review really nailed what i think is most touching about the game -- yes, it's a silly dating sim about hot dads, but it doesn't skimp on the storyline with amanda, either. for as many hot dad choices as you have to make, you have to make choices on how to proceed with amanda, what kind of dad you're going to be for her. balancing dating and being a dad is an interesting touch and for as much as i want to have all the dad dating fun, i'm 100% invested in making sure things turn out okay with amanda.
now for some specifics, so... spoilers past this point.
7/22
robert
- apparently per the internet, if you sleep with robert the first time you meet him, you're never going to get the good ending with him. but. listen. sometimes a hot dad just needs to hook up with another hot dad, okay
- i'll probably go back and play through robert on the "whoops we already banged" trajectory i already set him on, and then eventually go play back in a way where i don't hook up with him at the first meeting, so stay tuned
- there's a bit in joseph's storyline where your dad sees a picture of the Dad Group and robert is there and has a sweater on? that your dad recognizes? anyway, i really really want to know what's up with that. do robert and joseph have a history??? i need to know!!
joseph
- i picked this storyline to play out first, because i was like, well, let's get the fucked up one out of the way first
- if you were wondering if it was possible to accidentally kill your dad in game, the answer is yes, and you can do it in joseph's storyline, in the most ridiculous absurd way possible. on the plus side, when you die -- at least how i experienced it here -- it just punts you right back to where you left off, so you don't have to go back to earlier save points. (there might be other storylines where you die, but this is obviously the first one i found so far.)
- this is a storyline where -- if this game was going to be shitty about your queer dad, even by accident, it would be here. you're sharing intimate moments with an unhappily married youth minister. you have to interact with his wife several times. there's a lot of potential for garbage there!! but the closest it ever gets with mary is her saying that she doesn't think you're usually joseph's type, which could mean anything, and which given the tone of the rest of the game, i didn't interpret as a sexuality thing.
- anyway, so (right now) the only ending you can really get with joseph is him sitting down and telling you "well, this has been nice, but i've been thinking and i'm going to try to reconcile with my wife". depending on the choices you made up to there, the dialogue may be slightly different but that's the gist of it. and even though that's the ending i expected -- i was still really sad? like, gasped, pushed the laptop away from me. i felt just as sad and confused as my game dad. we did everything right! he's clearly miserable with mary! please, dream daddies!!!
- according to at least one twitch streamer, there's a theory that there's a bug in the game with your interactions with mary -- basically at one point, it turns out that no matter what conversation strings you follow, you get the same result -- she leaves the interaction pissed off. the assumption is that one of those strings should get her to leave the bar happier and change the outcome of the storyline.
- but also, like. it would be 10000% more realistic that the only reasonable ending you get after fucking around with a married dude is the one where you don't end up together. so. maybe it's not a bug.
amanda
- apparently you can get a bad ending with amanda and i honestly don't know if i have it in my heart to be a shitty dad to her. why would i want to make amanda unhappy! that sounds like the worst.
7/23
robert
- i played through a little more of his storyline and got a happy-ish ending? it was basically robert being like "hey i really need to work on myself but this is nice and i'm glad you're here for me". for a silly dating sim, delving into "guy has unresolved issues that he covers up with extreme sarcasm and also heavy drinking" is certainly a choice i didn't expect
- i'm still super intrigued by whatever's going on with mary and robert? like, how are they drinking besties? i have so many questions!!
joseph
- i didn't go back to replay any of his storyline but i did get myself caught up in a reddit spiral reading about the "secret ending" for his storyline and i am FASCINATED. i won't spoil it here, you can google it if you want, but as someone who's all about stuff that's dark and creepy and fucked up, i wish someone could figure out how to crack that ending because it wold give me a lot of joy. (the rest of the internet seems to be Mad about it.)
- playing through the robert storyline a bit and getting my dates crashed by mary, who exists mostly to drink and flirt with other guys, makes me even more annoyed that the joseph endings are all "lol nm going back to my wife"
i think either my next playthrough will be: going on at least two dates with each dad before picking a new one? or like.... a catastrophe run where i just pick the absolute worst answer for every conversation? i will need to create a new dad for that; i'm too attached to my current dad to make him be an asshole to everyone.
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